Dartmouth Select Board endorses 'interim' bikeway plan

The Pathways Committee's "interim" plan to cobble together a 10-mile bikeway from the Westport line through Padanaram Village got the Select Board's blessing Monday night.

MATT CAMARA

DARTMOUTH — The Pathways Committee's "interim" plan to cobble together a 10-mile bikeway from the Westport line through Padanaram Village got the Select Board's blessing Monday night.

Pathways Committee Chairman Alan Heureux said the proposal is "interim" because a number of details have yet to be finalized, such as a potential spur through the UMass Dartmouth campus.

"It's still a work in progress," Heureux said before Monday's meeting. "This is sort of our first coming-out party in front of the public and on TV."

The bikeway is Dartmouth's leg of the larger South Coast Bikeway project, which hopes to link SouthCoast from Wareham to Swansea with bike paths.

The plan calls for an east-west bikeway on existing roads and paths through the town. No dedicated bike paths like the Phoenix Bike Trail in Fairhaven or the Mattapoisett Rail Trail, both of which are paved, are included in the interim plan, which the Select Board unanimously endorsed.

"We said 'What roads already exist?'" said committee member Marcia Picard. "There will be some signage but not the cost of building a dedicated bike path."

The bikeway picks up at the Westport line on Old Westport Road and travels southeast through Dartmouth until it reaches New Bedford's South End near Jones Park, according to a map provided by the Pathways Committee that shows the proposed route and a number of possible "spurs" or side trails.

Although the original intent was to build the paths on rail trails, Dartmouth does not have right-of-way over the rails in town, which are still used by trains unlike in other towns.

Police Chief Timothy Lee raised concerns about the rail trails being difficult to patrol or respond to during emergencies, as well, according to committee meeting minutes from January.

With all that in mind, the committee turned to using existing roads for which the town possesses the right of way instead, he said.

The first mile of the trail will hopefully be finished by the year's end, Heureux told the board.

The Department of Public Works has offered to purchase the signage needed, for about $80 per sign, and a $275 stencil to paint "sharrows" on the bikeway, he said. A sharrow is a road symbol alerting motorists to share the road with cyclists.

There is no completion date for the rest of the trail and some parts of the plan may change yet.

Select Board member Shawn McDonald raised safety concerns with the plan's turn down Lucy Little Road, a narrow road near UMass Dartmouth that could be removed from the plan if bikers could cut across the university's campus.